Low EPC Rating in Leasehold Flat

DaffyUK

HI All
I am currently in the process of selling my short lease (57 years) flat. After nearly two months of waiting for it to go through the buyers have come back to me saying that as the Flat has a rating of F (despite a complete refurbishment) in a recent EPC rating they will be unable to rent it out in a year due to the change in legislation. They want me to raise this EPC rating. As it is a lease flat I have no ability to do loft or wall insulation and can find no evidence it has been done (the flats are 40 years old and the landlord would not have paid out of his own pocket to do this) so the only thing that can I can see to raise enough points is install Storage Heaters as the flat is electric only. My question would be are storage heaters the answer or could i install electric wall heaters at a considerable saving. I reckon I am looking at about £700-£1000 to get this done. The length of the lease makes my buyers valuable but this cost they want me to absorb is very frustrating! Advice would be much appreciated!!

G_M

Read up on how many points can be gained from doing what.

Given the forthcoming new rules on EPC ratings & letting, I'm nt surprised the buyers are concerned.

http://www.energykey.co.uk/epc.html

http://cernunnos-homes.co.uk/news-reviews/epcs-explained/

ComicGeek

How close are you to the E/F boundary? If you're only 1/2 points away, then making sure that you have energy efficient bulbs everywhere could get you over.


With electric only, and no opportunities to improve the fabric, then I would think storage heaters would be your only option to get a significant improvement. What do you have at the moment?


Do you have a two rate electricity meter at the moment, ie Economy 7 or similar? If not, you would also need to change that in order for the EPC to claim the benefit of the storage heaters.

DaffyUK

Unfortunately I am quite a few points off. At the moment I use portable electric oil filled radiators which I roll out in the winter and put away in the summer. It is all rather frustrating as the flat itself is in very good condition. The plan would be to install Economy 7 but that in itself is proving difficult as providers don't seem to advertise it on their websites.

misswoosie

Are you sure the EPC is correct? We owned a flat in a "non traditional" 6 floor building. It had Economy 7 heating with NS heaters and a traditional immersion water heater. The EPC came out as D ( closer to C) which we were quite surprised at as we didn't have energy saving bulbs in all the fittings and the kitchen and bathroom only had wall mounted, hard wired fan heaters. It did have UPVC double glazing. We thought the EPC had been "boosted" by the fact that we were a 4 th floor flat with only 2 external walls, so essentially the flats above, below and to either side were acting as insulation. I'm not convinced that the EPC measurement tool the assessors use is very reliable.

I think EDF and NPower do Economy 7. If you're going to get it done then I would also look at an Economy 10 meter which gives you a 3 hour cheap period in the early evening. Depends how cold the flat is , whether you have an electric shower or use hot water from the tank for baths etc and whether you go for the more expensive NS heaters. Our bedrooms ( North facing) were often very cold by 9pm and we could've done with a boost of the heaters around tea time. Our NS heaters were older , so maybe not the best at storing the heat.

£700-£1000 seems cheap considering the electrical work and the cost of the NS heaters. Mind don't suppose the new EPC would take into account how many NS heaters there were or size relative to the size of the rooms. It's probably just the fact that the flat would have some sort of "central heating" system installed. Maybe hard wired , non economy 7 electric panel heaters and energy saving light bulbs would get it to an E?

DaffyUK

My current rating is 24 and I need to get it to 39 to achieve an E. I wish it was just light bulbs!

ognum

Could you agree a discount on the price and allow the purchaser to do the work. Maybe £1k

ComicGeek

misswoosie wrote: »

Maybe hard wired , non economy 7 electric panel heaters and energy saving light bulbs would get it to an E?

Can't see this working, it needs to be economy 7 to drop the running costs to get to an E. If there's no current heating installed, then the EPC will assume plug in heaters - not much difference between this and non economy 7 panel heaters so wouldn't change the rating.

ReadingTim

Surely your money would be better spent increasing the length of the lease rather than upping your EPC rating. You'd have more choice of buyer too, so wouldn't need to pander to this one.

misswoosie

Maybe you want to download this EPC calculator and have a play around with it
http://www.uk-ncm.org.uk/download.jsp?id=13